Der Ring 2/4, ossia A Valquíria

(Voigt e Terfel em A Valquíria, Met, Abril de 2011)

Segundo round de O Anel, d’après Robert Lepage, em cena no Met!

Depois de um circense O Ouro do Reno, eis que Lepage estreia A Valquíria, primeira jornada de três, que compõem a tetralogia wagneriana – as derradeiras verão a luz do dia na próxima temporada da sala nova-iorquina.

Uma vez mas, o dispositivo cénico levantou dificuldades aos intérpretes, que se viram e desejaram para levar a carta a Garcia! A notícia do The New York Times diz tudo: A ‘Walküre’ Still Obsessed With Its Big, Expensive Toy. Não é suposto, pois não?!

No tempo da outra senhora, a encenação servia a obra… Mas hoje em dia, a obra é crucificada diante do capricho narcísico do encenador!

Em todo o caso, o que merece destaque, na minha opinião – posto que se trata de uma récita lírica –, é a prestação da orquestra, maestro e intérpretes.

Quando, no mesmo palco, se reúnem bestas operáticas do calibre de Terfel (Wotan), Kaufmann (Siegmund), Voigt (Brünnhilde), Blythe (Fricka) e Westbroek (Sieglinde), dirigidas por um maestro oleado em Wagner como Jimmy Levine, o resultado só pode ser um estrondoso sucesso!

Lá para finais de Maio, por ocasião da minha derradeira deslocação a NYC (esta temporada), dir-vos-ei de minha justiça…

«Two scenes in the Metropolitan Opera’s highly anticipated new production of Wagner’s “Walküre,” which opened on Friday night, showcased what is both captivating and exasperating about Robert Lepage’s production, the second installment in his staging of the complete “Ring” cycle.

During the opening storm scene, the 24 movable planks of the imposing set by Carl Fillion that dominates the production (which the cast and crew call the machine) rose upright (with, as always, some audible creaking) to become a wall for video images of gusting, snow-flecked winds. Then the images and beams morphed into a forest of ominous gray trees through which you could see young Siegmund (the tenor Jonas Kaufmann), exhausted and injured, fleeing an avenging band of sword-wielding clansman as they searched for him with lanterns. It was an arresting realization of action depicted in the opera only in fitful orchestral music.

But a problematic staging touch came at the opening of Act II. Here the planks jutted out to evoke the “wild rocky place” that Wagner calls for. Wotan, the bass-baritone Bryn Terfel, came bounding onto the beams, now horizontal, which were alive with images of rocky terrain. Then his rambunctious daughter Brünnhilde, the soprano Deborah Voigt, appeared. As Ms. Voigt started to climb the planks that evoke the hillside, she lost her footing and slid to the floor.

Fortunately Mr. Lepage and the cast had correctly decided to play this scene for its humor. Brünnhilde, a warrior maiden who wants nothing to do with marital ties, has come to tease her father and alert him that his bossy wife, Fricka, is fast approaching. So Ms. Voigt rescued the moment by laughing at herself. She stayed put on the row of flat, fixed beams at the front of the stage and tossed off Brünnhilde’s “Hojotoho” cries.

The problem here was not just that in this crucial dramatic moment, with Ms. Voigt about to sing the first line of her first Brünnhilde, Mr. Lepage saddled her with a precarious stage maneuver. The problem was that for the rest of the scene, whenever Wotan or Brünnhilde walked atop the set, the beams wobbled and creaked. At times Mr. Terfel, a big, strong man, had to extend his arms to balance himself. No imagery is worth having to endure the sounds of creaking gears and looks of nervousness on the faces of singers.

What moved me about this “Walküre” and made the five-hour-plus evening seem to whisk by was the exciting, wondrously natural playing that James Levine drew from the great Met orchestra and the involving singing of the impressive cast. Mr. Levine has had a rough time recuperating from back surgery. His conducting on Friday, if not as commanding as his work in Berg’s “Wozzeck” this month, was inspired and beautiful. Certain passages were perhaps not as together as in Levine “Walküre” performances past. But this one had fresh urgency and sweep. Taking bows onstage at the end, with the supporting arms of Mr. Terfel and Ms. Voigt, he looked frail. Still, he did superb work and was greeted with a huge ovation.

Among the cast Ms. Voigt had the most at stake. A decade ago, when she owned the role of Sieglinde at the Met, she seemed destined to be a major Brünnhilde. Her voice has lost some warmth and richness in recent years. But the bright colorings and even the sometimes hard-edged sound of her voice today suits Brünnhilde’s music. I have seldom heard the role sung with such rhythmic accuracy and verbal clarity. From the start, with those go-for-broke cries of “Hojotoho,” she sang every note honestly. She invested energy, feeling and character in every phrase.

There were certainly some vocally patchy passages. Now that she is past this first performance, she may better realize her conception of the character, who evolves from a feisty tomboy to a baffled goddess deeply moved by Siegmund’s love for Sieglinde. All in all, this was a compelling and creditable Brünnhilde.

More than in the production of “Das Rheingold” that opened the season, Mr. Terfel’s stated intentions with Wotan came through here. He may not have the noble, sonorous voice of Wotans in the Hans Hotter lineage. But his muscular singing crackled with intensity, incisive diction and gravelly power.

During Wotan’s long narrative in Act II, in which he explains the whole sorry story of his life to Brünnhilde, many singers emphasize the despair of this broken god. Mr. Terfel ranted and raged as he relived the events.

The audience fell in love with the new Met Siegmund, Mr. Kaufmann, who proved his Wagnerian prowess last summer as Lohengrin at Bayreuth. Handsome and brooding, he captured all the valor and torment of this uprooted demigod. His dark, textured and virile voice has ideal Germanic colorings for the music. He is a true tenor, and the role may sit a little low for him. He could not wait, it seemed, to sing the big high A in Siegmund’s last phrase of Act I, which he held onto thrillingly. He had a great night.

Not so, unfortunately, the Dutch soprano Eva-Maria Westbroek, in her Met debut, as Sieglinde. Fresh from her triumph in the title role of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s new opera “Anna Nicole” at Covent Garden, Ms. Westbroek was eager to introduce herself to Met audiences in a Wagner role for which her big, gleaming voice is well suited. In Act I she looked lovely and sounded good if a little steely. Before Act II Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, announced from the stage that even though Ms. Westbroek was ill, she would sing anyway. But once the act got going, she decided not to appear, and Margaret Jane Wray, an experienced and dusky-voiced Wagnerian, sang that act and the next.

As Fricka, the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe was in typically astonishing voice. This aggrieved goddess has just one crucial scene in the opera, a marital confrontation with Wotan in which she demands that Siegmund, having violated the covenants of marriage and engaged in incestuous love, must be allowed to die in his battle with Hunding (the stentorian bass Hans-Peter König). Mr. Lepage has Fricka play almost the entire scene sitting on an exotic throne that is rolled out a little shakily. But Ms. Blythe is such a compelling presence and formidable singer that she did not seem confined. Stephanie Blythe rules.

The stage effects in this production are sometimes amazing, sometimes clunky and intrusive. (And what was the persistent white-noise whirring that seemed to be coming from the ventilation fans in the boxes that house the video projection equipment?)

The long Act I encounter in which Siegmund arrives as a stranger at Hunding’s dwelling was played behind the extended apron of the set, back in a sunken portion of the stage. Why place this most intimate action so far back, where the voices were sometimes swallowed up? For most of the act the legs of the three singers were cut off from view — from the knees down. Left alone at night, Mr. Kaufmann’s Siegmund briefly leaped atop the extended apron, and here, suddenly, was the character in full, and much closer to us; Mr. Kaufmann looked liberated and sounded terrific.

During the “Ride of the Valkyries” Mr. Lepage had fun. The eight sisters straddled individual beams as if riding horses, holding reins and staying in place as the planks rose and fell to evoke the galloping steeds.

Still I do not understand Mr. Lepage’s devotion to using body oubles. In the final scene, some of the most sublime music ever written, Wotan places Brünnhilde in a sleeping state and leaves her atop a mountain surrounded with fire. But here Mr. Terfel led Ms. Voigt, in a trance, off the stage. The machine went into action, and soon we saw a body double as Brünnhilde hanging upside down on raked planks with images of rocky cliffs and spewing fire. We had, in effect, an aerial view of the mountain top.

But having bonded with Ms. Voigt’s Brünnhilde, I wanted to see the living, singing goddess meet her fate, with a much simpler staging. Mr. Lepage cannot help showing off his 45-ton toy, even when it means sending his Brünnhilde to the wings at what should be her most transcendent moment.»

Universal Barenboim

«Deutsche Grammophon and Decca Classics are delighted to announce the signing of a wide-ranging recording agreement with conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim. Music director of Berlin's Staatsoper and Staatskapelle and Maestro Scaligero at Milan's Teatro alla Scala - with projects including a new Ring production at both houses - Barenboim will record with both labels in extensive plans stretching beyond 2012, when the artist celebrates his 70th birthday.»

Permiti-me transcrever, apenas, a parte mais suculenta da notícia relativa à colaboração de Barenboim com o grupo Universal: justamente a que se refere ao registo de uma interpretação de Der Ring, de Wagner!

Sounds great!

O Anel de Lepage: la première (II)

Contrariamente à presse française – em especial, a que se dedica à música erudita (por demais narcísica e petulante) -, a cobertura do The New York Times refere o percalço da première de O Ouro do Reno (do Met), sem o enfatizar. This things do happen!

«It is a moment of glorious climax, and one of the most memorable in Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. Borne along by surging brass chords and shimmering strings, the gods cross a bridge into Valhalla and bring “Das Rheingold” to a close.

At the new Metropolitan Opera production, the divine ones are supposed to traverse a section of a giant set that tilts into a passageway toward the back of the stage.

At the opening on Monday night, the moment fizzled. Richard Croft — as Loge, the god of fire — was left standing on a barren stage after his fellow singers had wandered into the wings. The vast platform of the 45-ton set did not move upward from the back as it was supposed to, so the bridge section could not be formed. Valhalla was nowhere in sight.

The only signs of a bridge were multicolored strips of light projected onto what would have been the walkway. The lost moment followed an evening of technological wizardry and sometimes stunning images produced by the mammoth set.

The Met blamed an error in the computer program that controlled the set’s movement. Not enough room was allowed for the tilting platform to clear the stage floor, so safety sensors automatically shut down the movement.

(…)

When the moment works correctly, the singers are supposed to step down from a section of platform at the front of the stage and disappear into a space created as the main platform tilts down at the front and up at the back; Monday night they were stranded. Acrobats attached by cables and standing in for the gods are then supposed to appear and proceed up the tilted bridge, as Loge watches. A marble pattern is projected onto the platform, by now vertical, representing the hall of the gods.

After the dress rehearsal foul-up, the singers knew that they would leave through the wings if it happened again. Stage managers on Monday night signaled for them to come off that way when it became clear that the set was malfunctioning.

Another result of the complicated machinery was a fair amount of mechanical noise on Monday night as the planks moved. “We’ve been working to minimize the noise of the set, but a few creaks are inevitable with a moving set of this size in a repertory house — where scenery can’t be permanently installed,” the Met said in its statement.»

«Mr. Lepage’s “Rheingold” is the most intensely anticipated new production the Met has mounted in years. For the most part it was an impressive success: an inventive, fluid staging and a feat of technological wizardry that employs sophisticated video elements without turning into a video show. Wagner buffs tend to be a fanatical sort, and no doubt there will be debate about Mr. Lepage’s work. Here he received a mostly enthusiastic ovation with scattered boos. I had mixed feelings.

But let me start with Mr. Levine and the splendid performance he drew from the superb Met orchestra, which played brilliantly, and the excellent cast, as strong a lineup of vocal artists for a Wagner opera as I have heard in years. The formidable bass-baritone Bryn Terfel sang his first Wotan at the Met, a chilling, brutal portrayal; the powerhouse mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe was a vocally sumptuous, magisterial yet movingly vulnerable Fricka. And the bass-baritone Eric Owens had a triumphant night as Alberich.

Still, the state of Mr. Levine’s health and music making were major concerns going into this evening. When he took his bow during the curtain calls he looked a little wobbly and needed support. He seems to have lost weight. But there was nothing frail about his conducting.

Almost as if determined to prove something, he conducted the score with exceptional vigor, sweep and uncommon textural clarity. Inner details emerged, but always subtly folded into the overall arching episodes and spans of the opera. In the scene in which Wotan and Loge, the demigod of fire (here the tenor Richard Croft in a vocally suave and sly performance), try to wrest the booty of gold and the magic ring from Alberich in the lower realm of Nibelheim, Mr. Levine was an attentive accompanist, allowing the singers to exchange lines with conversational urgency, yet always there to nudge and juice the orchestral subtext. Mr. Levine clearly has some way to go in getting back his stamina and health. But this performance was an encouraging sign.

(…)

And the machine worked. Well, almost worked. There was one serious glitch at the end. The “machine” is what the cast and crew have taken to calling the 45-ton gizmo that dominates Mr. Lepage’s complex staging, the work of the set designer Carl Fillion. It consists of a series of 24 planks on a crossbar that rise and sink like seesaws, singly, in tandem or in patterns. To evoke the churning currents of the river where the Rhinemaidens protect the magic gold, the planks, bathed in greenish lights, undulate slowly. As in many traditional productions, the three aquatic sisters (Lisette Oropesa, Jennifer Johnson, Tamara Mumford) first appear dangling from cables. But when planks rise to create a wall of water for the maidens to rest on, there are video images of stones and pebbles on the river floor tumbling downward as the sisters rustle them.

Otto Schenk’s Romantic “Ring” production, which was retired in 2009, had passionate defenders. In talking up the Lepage “Ring,” Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, tried to assure everyone that this was not going to be some high-concept, Eurotrash staging. Mr. Lepage uses the latest in staging technology to “tell the story,” Mr. Gelb said repeatedly in interviews.

Actually, in many ways, even with all the high-tech elements, Mr. Lepage’s production is fairly traditional. François St-Aubin’s costumes are like glitzier, quirkier riffs on old-fashioned Wagnerian “Ring” outfits. Mr. Terfel’s Wotan has stringy hair that falls over the god’s blind left eye, and a rustic shirt missing an arm. Yet he sports a bronze breastplate right out of a storybook “Ring.” The giants, Fasolt and Fafner (the booming basses Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König) are like rugged bushmen, with scraggly hair and beards, and leggings covered with fur. Loge has a Peter Sellars hairdo (an inside joke from one director to another?), a ragtag outfit and hands that emit a fiery glow on command.

The production is also traditional in that Mr. Lepage essentially defers to Wagner. If he has strong personal takes on who these characters are, they did not come through here. One thing about those high-concept, updated “Ring” productions is that a director can put Wagner’s characters in a setting that makes you see them afresh. We will have to wait for the later installments of this “Ring” to see how, say, Mr. Lepage views Wotan’s role as a father to a rebellious daughter whom he loves and vicariously lives through.

There are breathtaking stage tricks in this production. When Wotan and Loge descend into Nibelheim, we see them walking down the planks as if descending a huge stairway. But, as presented, we look down on them from above: the Wotan and Loge that we see are body doubles harnessed to cables and walking the wall perpendicular to the stage. Mr. Lepage is like a magician eager to show off how a trick works, knowing it will still hook you. This one hooked me.

At other times, the use of body doubles seems gratuitous and distracting. When Fricka’s sister, Freia, whom Wotan has foolishly promised to the giants as payment for their construction job, first appears, she (actually a body double) careens on her stomach head-first down the planks, tilted like a playground slide. Really, this is just not a very godly thing to do.

The production worked well in scenes in which the machine turned into a stationary backdrop, and the planks became a video screen. In Nibelheim, for example, when on a lower level we saw Alberich’s slaves sweating over molten pots of gold, the wall above them was alive with shifting russet, earthen and blazing yellow colors.

Mr. Lepage deserves credit for coaxing vivid portrayals from his cast. And most of the action is played on an apron of planks that extend from the stage, which brings the singers into exciting proximity. Mr. Terfel’s singing was sometimes gravelly and rough. But his was a muscular Wotan, in both his imposing presence and his powerful singing.

Mr. Owens’s Alberich was no sniveling dwarf, but a barrel-chested, intimidating foe, singing with stentorian vigor, looking dangerous in his dreadlocks and crazed in his fantasy of ruling the universe.

The bright-voiced soprano Wendy Bryn Harmer was a sympathetic yet volatile Freia. The tenor Gerhard Siegel won your heart as the pitiable Mime, Alberich’s oppressed brother. The mezzo-soprano Patricia Bardon was not the most earthy-voiced Erda, but she sang with grave beauty. Adam Diegel, a youthful tenor in his Met debut, was Froh; the Met veteran baritone Dwayne Croft was in good voice as Donner.

Alas, the machine malfunctioned in the final scene, when the planks did not move into place to form the rainbow bridge to Valhalla. So the gods just wandered off the stage. Given the complexity of the device, it’s a wonder that it worked so well on its debut night.»

O Anel de Lepage: la première (I)

So far, reina a unanimidade em torno do esplendor d’ O Anel, d’après Lepage!

À excepção de Renaud Machart – um digno representante da velha e decadente escola francesa da crítica snob, rasteira e invejosa – a première de O Ouro do Reno não podia ter corrido melhor! À parte um pequeno incidente com a mega estrutura, em torno da qual toda a trama tem lugar – que o possidónio Machart enfatiza, até mais não -, Wagner foi tratado com respeito e admiração, tendo a obra do Mestre estado no centro da glória.

Robert Lepage serviu a dita obra, animando-a, coadjuvado por uma troupe notável e uma direcção orquestral – consta – memorável!

«Quelques huées ont cependant percé : si la lecture dramaturgique de Lepage est singulièrement fidèle au livret de Wagner et ne propose aucune (re)lecture politique ou décalée (comme celle, passablement ridicule, de La Tétralogie en cours à l'Opéra de Paris, ou celle, géniale, de Patrice Chéreau montée au Festival de Bayreuth), le Canadien a épuré son décor au point de le réduire à une machinerie ultra-technologique et minimaliste aux métamorphoses infinies.

Comme l'énigmatique monolithe du cinéaste Stanley Kubrick, ce gigantesque mur de lattes articulées est d'une présence inquiétante et mystérieuse. Il se mue en architectures diverses (escalier, mur, forêt, rempart, fleuve, etc.) éclairées par des "tatouages" lumineux d'une beauté stupéfiante. Non seulement les projections permettent des variétés infinies de motifs, mais ceux-ci sont décuplés encore par la part de hasard qu'autorise le logiciel mis au point par les équipes de Lepage.

Après avoir assisté à une répétition technique de cet Or du Rhin cet été (Le Monde du 26 août), on espérait un spectacle démiurgique et renversant. Mais on a été quelque peu désarçonné par la retenue de Lepage : peu d'effets spéciaux et de folie visuelle. Certes, les images irréelles, sur un fond bleu aimable, des naïades se baignant dans le Rhin sont fascinantes, mais on se lasse un peu des impressions colorées assez statiques et ternes pendant les (longues) scènes de dialogues.

On se demande aussi si Lepage veut singer l'imagerie des séries et films de science-fiction avec ses costumes et certains dispositifs du "monolithe" articulable ou s'il joue avec (et se joue) les conventions de représentation. Quelle sera la courbe dramatique du cycle tout entier ? Lepage réserve-t-il ses cartouches d'artificier génial ? Nous n'en sommes en effet qu'au prologue, et il est probable que les volets suivants permettront au Canadien de libérer les forces obscures et lumineuses de sa lecture.

Sur scène, une distribution de haut niveau mais inégale. On peut rêver Fricka plus sensible queStephanie Blythe, un peu rombière, et Wotan plus profond (dramatiquement et musicalement) que Bryn Terfel, dont Lepage semble vouloir faire un voyou débraillé. Le Loge de Richard Croft est sensible mais manque de projection vocale. En Alberich, l'exceptionnel baryton-basse Eric Owens, colosse à la voix énorme et somptueuse, qu'on aurait volontiers entendu en Wotan.

Cette ouverture de saison marquait aussi le retour en fosse du chef d'orchestre James Levine, qui fête ses quarante années d'activité au Met. La saison dernière, il avait annulé la plupart de ses représentations en raison de graves problèmes physiques. Après une opération du dos, l'Américain, aminci, semble avoir du mal à se déplacer, mais sa gestique est plus expressive que jamais, et son Wagner, qu'il connaît comme sa poche pour l'avoir dirigé si souvent au Met et à Bayreuth, est d'une rondeur, d'un lyrisme et d'une clarté exceptionnels.»

«Au lieu de quoi, les spectateurs n'ont vu qu'un décor statique en position de "repos", des chanteurs quitter la scène par la coulisse et des projections prismatiques sur le fond du décor. Une fin un peu décevante par rapport à ce qui était annoncé par Peter Gelb, le directeur du Met, comme la production la plus ambitieuse qu'ait connue l'Opéra – et probablement l'une des plus coûteuses aussi, puisqu'elle avoisinerait les 16 millions de dollars (11,75 millions d'euros) de dépenses pour les quatre volets de La Tétralogie.

La même panne s'est pourtant produite lors de la répétition générale du spectacle, mais M. Gelb a minimisé les dommages, déclarant au New York Times : "Le public a énormément apprécié la production hier soir. Il a vu sur scène des choses qu'il n'avait probablement jamais vues auparavant, assure-t-il. J'aime à penser que les spectateurs comprennent l'effort énorme qui sous-tend tout ceci. Nous expérimentons des choses nouvelles, mais tout ne se passe pas toujours aussi bien que nous le souhaiterions. Ce que nous proposons est si nouveau et si extraordinaire qu'il me semble que le public est de notre côté et qu'il comprend que tout ceci est le début du voyage au long cours que constitue cette production épique."»

« Lepage treated the audience to a mesmerising display of virtual magic, giving them plenty to feast their eyes on in the intimate scenes between the coups de théâtre. Images projected on to the set evoke the depths of the Rhine, the mountaintops of the gods and the underground realm of the Nibelungen.

Wearing costumes inspired by early productions, the singers move around a stage bathed in infrared light. Computers pick up their movements and envelop them in projected pictures that move with their voices and the score. Wherever the god Loge goes, a flaming aura follows.

Consisting of 24 aluminium and fibreglass planks which pivot like see-saws around a central beam, Carl Fillion’s ingenious set twists and turns into myriad shapes. When Wotan and Loge descend into Nibelheim, the set becomes a sweeping sideways staircase, walked by acrobats standing in as stunt doubles for the singers.

As Alberich’s slaves toil over the anvils, Etienne Boucher’s evocative lighting means you can almost feel the heat emanating from the stage.

Far from overwhelming the singing, Lepage’s playful production complements it beautifully, with the set acting as a big resonating chamber. Superbly conducted by Ring cycle veteran James Levine, Rheingold features an exceptionally strong cast, with Bryn Terfel as Wotan, his first time in the role at the Met, Stephanie Blythe as Fricka and Eric Owens as Alberich.

Described by the Met as the most complicated production ever put on its stage, the mind-boggling system of computers and hydraulics the new Ring depends on went off without a hitch on opening night.

As the curtain fell, the audience went wild.

The verdict in the house was unanimous: a triumph, at once subtle and spectacular, intimate and epic.»

«The performances were as glorious as was to be expected. Bryn Terfel, making his US debut in his celebrated role of Wotan, the lord of the gods, was brooding and dark. He was powerfully supported by Stephanie Blythe as his wife Fricka. Eric Owens made a skin-crawling Alberich, and Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König as the giants Fasolt and Fafner loomed over the stage like creatures from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are.

Lepage was perhaps not an obvious choice for a Ring Cycle, a crucial commission for the Met, which has had financial difficulties recently. He specialises in high-tech wizardry of the Cirque du Soleil variety, the kind that makes your jaw drop in sheer admiration of its cleverness.

That alone made many fans of the Ring nervous, as there were suspicions that he would be too clever by half, allowing his technical brilliance to overshadow the only genius they want to shine out of the stage: Wagner himself.

At times that looked as though it might become a problem. The centrepiece of the production is a rack of 24 planks built out of fibreglass-covered aluminium that can rise and fall powered by hydraulics and can revolve through 360 degrees.»

O Anel de Lepage

(Der Ring des Nibelungen: encenação de Robert Lepage, Met Opera House - Setembro de 2010)

A nova produção de Der Ring, que o Met estreou a 27 de Setembro, tem ocupado consideravelmente espaço neste blog - vide aqui e aqui. Eis, em jeito de derradeira antevisão, uma súmula do trabalho de Robert Lepage. Neste endereço, poderá encontrar belíssimas fotografias desta mise-en-scène.

«(...) the Met calls the most complicated production ever put on its stage: a new Wagner “Ring” cycle that involves a leviathan set, scenery almost entirely based on intricate computerized projections and a few age-old theatrical techniques.

(...)

The exceptionally strong “Rheingold” cast includes Bryn Terfel as Wotan, his first time in the role at the Met; Stephanie Blythe as Fricka; Eric Owens as Alberich; Gerhard Siegel as Mime; Wendy Bryn Harmer as Freia; Patricia Bardon as Erda; Adam Diegel as Froh; Richard Croft and Dwayne Croft, who are brothers, as Loge and Donner; Franz-Josef Selig and Hans-Peter König as the giants Fasolt and Fafner; and Lisette Oropesa and Tamara Mumford as the two other Rhinemaidens.

James Levine, the Met’s music director, who conducted every performance of 21 “Ring” cycles at the house, said he was optimistic about the production and cautioned that early rehearsals for the first installment were too little on which to base a complete judgment.

“What I especially love is when I saw the very first pictures, models, the very first attempts,” Mr. Levine said of Mr. Lepage’s concept. “There was one thing very clear: He was going to tell this story. He wasn’t looking for an exterior allegorical gimmick. I’m thrilled with the fact that he is trying to use everything in his imagination and at his disposal to tell this story.”

(...)

The production creates a fascinating anomaly. The opera house is one of the few places left where audiences can regularly hear pure human voices unmediated by electronics. Yet those voices emerge from a haze of electronic magic. All the technology threatens to overwhelm that simple endeavor in the Lepage cycle.

“All those effects are subtle,” Mr. Lepage said. “You really have to keep an eye on them. You can’t overwhelm.”

He added: “Between these coups de théâtre, there are hours of people singing to each other. It’s very intimate.” The singers will be close to the pit, on the apron before the big set.

Mr. Levine, the music director, acknowledged that he was concerned early on that the technology would not serve the piece. But he added, “So far what we’ve got up there with ‘Rheingold’ is looking very good to me.”

None of the leading singers interviewed expressed worry about being overwhelmed by the technology. As it happens, the set is said to provide loving acoustics.

Ms. Blythe agreed: “The set is extremely friendly to the voice. It’s a big resonating chamber.”

The projected scenery, she said, was simply another language for the audience to get used to.

“It’s all very new, and it’s a new experience for all of us,” she said. “But you know, it’s all theater, man.”»

Der Ring, d'après Robert Lepage...

(Robert Lepage)

A escassas semanas da estreia da nova produção de Der Ring, encomendada pelo Met a Robert Lepage, eis que o encenador levanta a ponta do véu. Do dispositivo sofisticado e complexo, já todos sabiamos...

Agora, impacientemente, aguardemos!

«L'été 2010 de Robert Lepage aura été studieux. Quelques semaines après le succès, au Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, de son spectacle Le Rossignol et autres fables, créé à Toronto en 2009, et repris à l'Opéra de Lyon du 12 au 21 octobre, le metteur en scène canadien a enchaîné avec les premières répétitions scéniques de la Tétralogie de Richard Wagner, qu'il règle pour le Metropolitan Opera de New York (Met).

La première de L'Or du Rhin, le prologue du cycle, aura lieu le 27 septembre, tandis que La Walkyrie sera donnée en avril-mai 2011 et les deux derniers volets (Siegfried et Le Crépuscule des dieux) au cours de la saison suivante.

Robert Lepage prend-il d'ailleurs des vacances ? La blague qui circule à ce sujet est que, qu'il soit en randonnée ou sur un canot avec des amis à la nuit tombée, le Canadien transforme la moindre sortie en spectacle, avec torches et ombres portées...

Cette Tétralogie est une très lourde affaire, dans tous les sens du terme : pour ce festival d'environ quinze heures de musique, Lepage a imaginé une structure scénique qui a exigé que le Met renforce in extremis une partie de son plateau afin d'accueillir l'énorme machinerie qui le commande par le biais d'une forêt d'ordinateurs.

Le budget de l'opéra new-yorkais a connu de sérieuses coupes depuis la crise financière internationale, mais Peter Gelb, son directeur, n'a pas hésité à engager cette dépense imprévue, dont il n'a jamais dévoilé le montant mais que le New York Times estime à au moins 125 000 dollars (environ 99 000 euros) : "Cette nouvelle production est l'une des plus ambitieuses qu'ait connues la maison. Je suis certain de son succès et que c'est le type même d'invention scénique dont Wagner aurait été fier !", nous a confié M. Gelb au cours de la première répétition technique au Met, le 10 août. Quelques jours plus tard, les chiffres de la location lui donnaient raison : les représentations de L'Or du Rhin étaient complètes et la billetterie battait tous les records.

Cette Tétralogie aura pour seul décor un dispositif d'une très haute technologie : constitué de lattes, il peut, au gré de la mise en scène, se muer en architectures diverses (rempart, escalier, plan incliné, forêt, vrille, tapis volant, etc.) sur lesquelles les personnages évoluent de manière irréelle. La "peau" de ce monstre en constante métamorphose est "tatouée" par des projections lumineuses électroniques.

"La préparation et l'automation ont donné beaucoup de fil à retordre à mes collaborateurs", avoue Robert Lepage, pendant une pause, au beau milieu d'une vingtaine d'écrans d'ordinateur. Il ajoute : "Il n'est pas question d'en faire une affaire technologique mais poétique."

Car, en effet, Robert Lepage (qui est aussi acteur, plasticien et cinéaste) est connu pour la haute technicité et le langage multimédia de ses spectacles. Mais qu'il travaille pour le théâtre ou l'opéra, pour le chanteur Peter Gabriel ou la troupe du Cirque du Soleil, le metteur en scène n'a qu'un seul credo : "Raconter des histoires avec le langage de la modernité."

La Damnation de Faust, d'Hector Berlioz, présentée à l'Opéra de Paris en 2001, était un exemple extraordinaire d'artifice onirique. A l'occasion des reprises de ce spectacle, au Met, en 2008 et 2009, Lepage avait modifié sa mise en scène au gré des progrès techniques.

"Les recherches en informatique ont permis de développer un équivalent visuel à la transformation du son en temps réel que pratiquent les laboratoires de recherche musicale, explique le Canadien. Désormais, les machines nous permettent de laisser libre cours à une part de hasard, d'invention spontanée. Ainsi, les mouvements, les silences et la densité sonore des chanteurs, qui ne sont jamais tout à fait les mêmes d'une représentation à l'autre, influeront-ils en direct sur les images projetées. Le vivant reste donc le moteur principal du jeu électronique..."

Très en amont, Lepage a mis en place et rodé son dispositif dans les locaux de sa compagnie, Ex Machina, installée dans la ville de Québec, au Canada, avant de transférer à New York les répétitions avec doublures et cascadeurs. "Certains chanteurs assureront eux-mêmes les cascades, précise-t-il. Mais il y aura aussi des acrobates, de sorte que ceci, je l'espère, contribuera au mystère foisonnant du spectacle."

Quelle sera la place du jeu d'acteur dans cette impressionnante machinerie high-tech ? "Tout sera techniquement réglé avant l'arrivée des chanteurs. Mais leur corporalité, leur musicalité vont habiter poétiquement ces processus. Je ne vais pas les livrer à eux-mêmes, loin de là, mais je veux me laisser surprendre, laisser s'exprimer cette part décisive d'incarnation, d'invention", assure-t-il.

Il rappelle un autre credo qui lui est cher : "Il ne faut jamais oublier que l'origine du théâtre, c'est un récit autour d'un feu, et la découverte d'ombres chinoises sur les murs d'une caverne. C'est aussi simple et aussi beau que cela." Nul doute que la caverne de Fafner le dragon ne ressemblera à aucune autre, et qu'on n'y verra que du feu.»